While You're Waiting for David Baldacci's The Hit

If you're getting antsy for your copy of The Hit to arrive, don't fret, we have some other titles that will entertain you with spies, assassins, and fast-moving fiction. In The Hit--second in the Will Robie series after The Innocent--the U.S. government has hired Robie to track down a fellow assassin who has gone rogue, but in the process of searching for her, he finds some information about immanent threats that would prove very deadly should they occur.

Here are a few suspenseful, plot-driven novels that might keep you biting your nails and imagining dark scenarios while you wait for Baldacci's latest page-turner:

The Lost Symbolby Dan Brown. If you like reading about cryptographers, mysterious secrets, and obscure organizations, try this one. The hero goes to D.C. to give a speech where he discovers that a good friend has been abducted. Follow him as he solves complex puzzles as he searches for his friend.

Lethalby Sandra Brown. There are easier people to run from them the FBI. But when suspected murderer Lee Coburn visits Honor Gillette to find an object left behind by her late husband, Honor and Lee fight a web of corruption to find answers. This fast moving plot involves the trafficking of guns, drugs, and girls. And yes, a romance develops between Lee and Honor. Who can resist steely blue eyes?

The Affairby Lee Child. This is actually number 16 in the Jack Reacher series, but since it's a prequel you can read it first. Reacher, the undercover half of a military cop team, has been assigned to investigate a crime that occurred in Carter Crossing, Mississippi. He's investigating the murder of a woman whose throat was cut, a trademark killing method of the US Rangers. What happens during this gig turns Reacher away from his military career. It's a memory book in which the hero relives his own past and notices how he got to be the Jack Reacher of today.

Nano by Robin Cook. On her year off from medical school, Pia Grazdani takes a job at Nanobots, a company involved in researching nanotechnology. She's warned not to research any other projects. After rescuing a man while jogging, she's shocked to find that he has been transferred from the cardiac unit to Nanobots, so Pia must enter an off-limits building to discover what is being hidden.

Sweet Toothby Ian McEwan. It's 1970s Britain, a world of drugs, rock and roll, second-wave feminism, and go-go dancing. Serna Frome, a compulsive novel reader, secures an entry-level job for a top-notch British spy agency. The agency is on a quest to involve talented authors in their mission. Serna meets one. They begin a love affair even though Serna is spying on the man. Despite their growing intimacy, she pretends to have another job. A slower-paced, but richly rewarding look at spying from a woman's point of view.

The Third Bulletby Stephen Hunter. Bob Lee Swagger was only seventeen when JFK was assassinated, but now as an old man, he has an opportunity to involve himself deeply in research about Kennedy's death. A woman who wrote a new book about that day in November has been killed, so Swagger jumps to the chase. He's nearly killed himself. A different take on a topic that has long fascinated Americans.

Deadlock by Iris Johansen. Set mostly in Afghanistan and Russia, an archaeologist, Emily Hudson, tries to rescue important Russian antiquities from a war zone but is nearly killed in a massacre. Spy John Garrett who works for the CIA comes to her rescue. This plot of international intrigue also features a romance between the two main characters and a look at Russian art from the time of the Romanovs.